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Friday, February 26, 2010

IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS AND HUNGER-STRIKING WORKERS...

UPDATE : Press statement by TEEU, Sunday February 28th, 2010 - "A number of media outlets persist in describing the dispute between the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union and Green Isle Foods in Naas as being about inappropriate emails. This is not the case. The dispute is over the unfair dismissal of three workers and union recognition. The Labour Court, which has adjudicated on the dispute and which heard evidence from the TEEU and from IBEC on behalf of Green Isle Foods, found that the dismissals were unjustified. It recommended the immediate return to work of the TEEU members, no victimisation and compensation for the three dismissed men totalling €180,000 if the company was not prepared to re-employ them. The persistent misrepresentation of the dispute is extremely damaging to the TEEU members on strike and particularly distressing to the hunger strikers, who did not access inappropriate material." END.

The monthly Dublin picket to enforce the fact that , despite what the Free State regime may claim , Irish Republican prisoners are not 'criminals', will be held at the GPO , O'Connell Street, on Saturday February 27th 2010 , from 12.30pm to 2pm. The on-going struggle to remove the British political and military presence from Ireland is not a 'criminal conspiracy' , but a political campaign : those involved in that campaign are political activists and must be viewed as such by , amongst others , the political criminals in Leinster House. Please show your support by holding a banner or placard at the GPO in Dublin on Saturday February 27th between 12.30pm and 2pm.

"Some of the family and lads are worried at the rate I'm losing weight....I've lost nearly a stone...."- James Wyse, hunger-striking worker , from here.

"On November 1st, 1913, IT&GWU Branch Secretary James Byrne became the first trade unionist to die on hunger strike in twentieth century Ireland. On 17th February (2010), James Wyse of the TEEU became the first man in the twenty-first century to go on hunger strike in the course of an industrial dispute in Ireland. The issue that led both men to take this momentous decision was their belief that workers have a right to be members of a trade union and to be represented by that trade union in their workplace.A second Green Isle Foods worker, John Guinan, who was a member of the Offaly team that won the Sam Maguire in 1982, joined James Wyse on hunger strike on Wednesday (24th February) outside the Green Isle Foods plant in Naas. Another colleague will join the hunger strike on Wednesday next (3rd March) if the dispute is not resolved.On Saturday, 27th February, the Kildare Council of Trade Unions is holding a rally in support of the Green Isle Foods workers, assembling at the Storm Cinema car park in Naas at 12 noon. This will be followed by a march to the Green Isle Foods plant. I am asking every member who can attend to participate and show your solidarity with the men on strike.They have been out for six months and it is only since James Wyse began his hunger strike that the company entered talks on a resolution to the dispute. Before that it not only refused to talk to the TEEU but rebuffed interventions by the Labour Relations Commission, the National Implementation Body and the Labour Court.

The dispute is over the dismissal of three TEEU members through an internal disciplinary procedure that denied them any representation by their union. Eventually the union referred the case to the Labour Court, which found the men had indeed been unfairly dismissed and should be fully reinstated or paid €160,000 in compensation. The company said it did not recognise unions and the Labour Court was not an appropriate forum to deal with the issue.

The shop stewards made a final effort to meet management and discuss terms for a return to work in January only to be rebuffed again. It was at that point that James Wyse advocated the hunger strike tactic and, as its proposer, insisted on being the first volunteer.

These men are defending a basic civil liberty to be represented in their workplace by a trade union if they so wish. It is a right recognised in virtually every other EU member state. These men not only deserve your support but it is in your interest as much as theirs that they win this struggle. Therefore I am asking each and every one of you who can to attend the rally in Naas on Saturday to do so and I am also asking you to sign the petition at www.teeu.ie on their behalf, if you have no already done so."(By Jack O'Connor, SIPTU)

RSF President , Des Dalton , has spoken in support of the Green Isle Food workers : "The workers at Green Isle have fought a lengthy battle to save jobs and to uphold the basic principles of justice in the workplace. Green Isle have refused to engage with the workers or their union the TEEU or accept the recommendation of the Labour Court that the workers they dismissed be reinstated without loss of pay. Instead they have used scab labour in an attempt to break the will of the workers and their union.The Green Isle workers have been forced to take the grave decision to embark on a hunger strike and it is the duty of all workers to rally to their support. Green Isle products should be boycotted and the general workforce at the plant must now come out in support of their fellow workers and bring this dispute to a head. No right won by working people has been gifted from above but has only come as a result of organised struggle. A class war is being waged on the working people of Ireland and it is time to fight back."(From here.)

Please give a few hours of your time on Saturday 27th February 2010 to support the Green Isle Food workers (Storm Cinema car park in Naas at 12 noon) and/or Irish political prisoners (GPO Dublin 12.30pm) : the corrupt millionaire political barons in Leinster House have declared both groups to be their 'enemies' - whose side are you on?Thanks!Sharon.

" In the Tuam area of County Galway , emigration is running at three times the national average with the loss of 400 people in the last year alone. That reality and those images are not shown by the media here because of the inescapable conclusion it would present to the people - that both States in Ireland are a failure and are judged a failure by those forced to vote with their feet.

The fate of 34% of the population living in poverty within Ireland is no better : with record levels of unemployment , ameliorated only by the even higher levels of emigration , fifty thousand people on hospital waiting lists, the marginalised one third of the population see that an estimated 1,800 million pounds is owed in taxes in the 26 Counties alone , predominantly by well-healed tax dodgers. Many of these people are increasingly investing in foreign takeovers without any obligation on them to plough back their profits in Ireland.

Irish Republicans must fight to expose this two-tier society that has recently seen a national asset like Carysfort College being handed over to private interests while the people of Dún Laoghaire badly need a Regional Technical College......." (MORE LATER).

BETRAYAL.......The (State) Gardaí used John Corcoran (pictured) as a (P)IRA informer. They allowed him to be killed by another (P)IRA informer, and have since refused to investigate his murder*.From 'MAGILL' magazine, Christmas Annual 1997.By Ursula Halligan and Vincent Browne.(*'1169...' Comment - their word, not ours.)

On December 13th , 1996 , 'The Kerryman' newspaper reported gardaí as stating that the John Corcoran case had been fully investigated and that a file had been sent to the State DPP . A week later , the garda press office contradicted this and stated that the case was still open and that the investigation was "ongoing" .

As reported in the following pages , Sean O'Callaghan claims that the decision to execute John Corcoran was taken by senior figures in the IRA , but a person then prominent in the IRA (in 1985) claims that that decision was taken by O'Callaghan himself , almost certainly in collusion with members of the (Free State) Garda Síochána who would not have wanted to 'blow' O'Callaghan's cover as an informer.

This would have been very likely had the gardaí raided the farm where John Corcoran was being held prior to his murder*.......(MORE LATER).

TRADE UNIONS AND THE HUNGER-STRIKE....... From 'IRIS' magazine, November 1981.

This position of support by the ICTU leadership , for political prisoners protesting against an established 'Irish government' , contrasts significantly with its attitude to the hunger-strike in Long Kesh prison: in 1980 , during the first phase of the hunger-strike led by Brendan Hughes, the ICTU executive not only refused to support the prisoners but also , without qualification, called upon the prisoners to unilaterally end their fast.

More recently, the ICTU refused to meet with relatives of the hunger-strikers , saying - " It would be unproductive to do so..." , while suggesting that to support the republican prisoners would alienate loyalist workers and lend succour to the overall IRA campaign.

The original 'concession' of political status for IRA prisoners was made in 1920 by the British government . Thomas Ashe died on hunger-strike during that prison struggle , and central to a victory for the IRA prisoners , at that time, was a nationwide general strike organised by the trade union movement.......(MORE LATER).